State

State Republicans win top line on ballot Court rules in their favor 6 weeks before election By SUSAN HAIGHAssociated Press

In this October 2010 photo, Republican gubernatorial nominee Thomas Foley, left, is seen with Jerry Labriola Jr., then the GOP candidate for Congress in the 3rd District. Labriola is now chairman of the state Republican Party.

HARTFORD — The Connecticut Supreme Court sided with state Republicans on Wednesday, agreeing their candidates, including Mitt Romney for president and Linda McMahon for the U.S. Senate, should appear on the top lines of the November ballot.

In a unanimous decision, the justices agreed that state law requires the GOP candidates to have top billing, but they did not offer any details surrounding their decision. A full written opinion was not released Wednesday.

"We thought that the Republican Party, based on the statute, was required to be on the first line of the ballot," said Proloy K. Das, an attorney for the state Republican Party. "We're glad that we came out on top."

State Republicans took Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, a Democrat, to court this summer after she denied a request from party leaders to change the order of this year's ballot. The Republicans argued that state law requires the order to be dictated by the results of the 2010 gubernatorial election and that Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was only able to win that year with the votes he received as a Working Families Party candidate.

Tom Foley received 560,874 votes while Malloy won 540,970 as a Democrat and 26,308 as a cross-endorsed Working Families Party candidate.

"I regret that it was necessary to file a legal action in response to the Secretary of the State's incorrect interpretation of election law, but I am pleased that our Republican candidates will have their rightful place on the top ballot line for the Nov. 6, 2012, election," Republican State Chairman Jerry Labriola Jr. said in a statement.

A message was left seeking comment with Merrill. In August, she had called the lawsuit a "regrettable distraction" and a "waste of valuable resources and taxpayer money."

Her office has argued that the Working Families Party did not have minor party status in 2010, so the top line goes to Malloy's party.

"We are confident we have consistently interpreted the law and applied it correctly," Merrill said in August. "Our legal conclusion was, the party of the governor — in this case the Democratic Party — gets the top line in Connecticut elections. The law is well-established."

Merrill has also argued that since the state replaced its lever voting machines with optical scan machines, the importance of being on the top line of the ballot has been diminished because there is no longer a line of candidates from a certain party.

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